1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a method and apparatus for conducting a promotion and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for distributing promotions to potential participants and for allowing the promotion participants to receive benefits associated with the promotions.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Merchants and manufacturers often use promotions to entice people to try or purchase products, shop or conduct transactions in certain stores, or to make people aware of products, store locations, sales, etc. Unfortunately, many such promotions suffer from a number of drawbacks. For example, promotions for which paper coupons, flyers, invitations, promotion entry forms, promotion rules, etc., must be printed may incur significant printing and distribution costs. Furthermore, knowing how many paper coupons, flyers, invitations, promotion entry forms, promotion rules, etc., to print may be difficult to predict, thereby often causing a merchant or manufacturer conducting the promotion to print too many or too few of the necessary items.
Additional problems for print based promotions may result when a merchant or manufacturer conducting the promotion desires to change a rule, benefit, prize, entry criteria, redemption criteria, or other aspect of the promotion once the promotion has started, or at least after the merchant or manufacturer has printed or distributed the printed items necessary for the promotion. Merchants and manufacturers may desire to change one or more aspects of a promotion while the promotion is on-going so as to encourage more people to participate in the promotion, to correct or change any inconsistencies or errors in the promotion or promotion related materials, etc.
Many promotions are based on a randomized distribution of prizes among promotion tickets or coupons. That is, a person may be given or sold one or more coupons or coupon numbers. If the person's coupon or coupon number is deemed to be a “winning” coupon, the person may win a prize associated with the winning coupon. For example, a classic lottery allows a person to pick or receive a set of numbers associated with a lottery ticket. If the person's numbers are chosen, the person generally wins a monetary prize. Such a lottery promotion is typically conducted by a government regulated lottery organization, which contracts with merchants to sell lottery tickets to consumers. The merchants have little control over the price of the lottery tickets, the prizes or benefits associated with winning lottery tickets, the advertising of the lottery promotion, or any conditions that a consumer must satisfy before purchasing a lottery ticket. Therefore, merchants have little ability to tailor such promotions to their products or market niches, customer demographics, inventory levels, etc.
Thus, despite the state of the art methods and systems for conducting lotteries and other promotions, there remains a need for a method and apparatus for conducting a promotion that overcomes the problems associated with print oriented promotions while providing a merchant or promotion organizer flexibility in the operation of the promotion as well as the ability to change one or more aspects of the promotion during the operation of the promotion.